314 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



"COVERT-SIDE," BY WM. AND HY. BARRAUD, 



1846. 

 " Carlow." 



A rich brown horse, 15 hds., ^^ inc., bred in County Carlow 

 (whence his name), began life as a racehorse on the Curragh 

 of Kildare. He was brought over to Melton Mowbray by the 

 then Earl of Howth about the best light weight rider of his 

 day, and hunted with the Ouorn, Belvoir, and Pytchley hounds, 

 establishing a reputation which survived long after he had left 

 that country. He was sold for ^500 (a large price in those 

 clays) for steeplechasing, and won many good races, including 

 the Hare-brained Moonlight S. C, got up by the regiment 

 when in garrison at Windsor. 



After many vicissitudes he was sold at Tattersall's and 

 realised but a small price, chieHy owing to his being vicious in 

 the stable. The purchaser was a sporting farmer and miller in 

 Essex, but though a strong, powerful man, he was quite unable 

 to ride the horse with hounds, even after "bucketing" him 

 round a ploughed field before starting. They had to cast 

 him before clipping or administering a ball. 



At the end of his first season in Essex he was sold to Jim 

 Morgan, the hard-riding huntsman of " The Essex Hounds," 

 under the Mastership of Henry John Conyers, of Copt Hall, 

 near Epping, who kept the hounds, chiefly at his own expense, 

 for quite forty years. Fortunately Jim Morgan was unable to 

 produce the purchase money, and sold his bargain to Mr. 

 Vickerman, then residing at Blackmore Priory, for a small 

 consideration. 



" Carlow " suited his new purchaser " down to the ground." 

 Though a tremendous puller, naturally of a jealous tempera- 

 ment, intensified by racing and chasing, and unable to tolerate 

 a horse in front of him, yet properly bitted {with a twisted 

 snaffle and "gridiron " bit of the owner's invention), and ridden 

 with a light hand, y^Vj/ /;? Ais oivii line, he was perfection, and 

 distinguished himself equally over the " yawners " or "ready- 

 made graves " (as they used to be termed) of The 

 Roothings ; the stone walls of the Heythrop and Vale of 

 White Horse, and the Bullfinches and Oxers of Leicester- 

 shire and Northamptonshire. Mr. Vickerman writes : — 



" Kind and firm treatment made him so fond of my stud 

 groom that the latter would frequently go alone in the dark 

 into his box and give him a ball without difficulty. 



On the first occasion of hunting him from Melton, with the 



